Until These Seams Are Sewn Again
by Xyliette
Summary: Mark and Callie through the course of several Decembers, over the span of a snap decision relationship.


A/N: For a Secret Santa exchange over the holidays. Enjoy-

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~  
Until These Seams Are Sewn Again  
- A Northern Chorus  
~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Daddy!" Rachel screams through the house, leaving a trail of mittens, snow dusted boots, her jacket, hat, and giant candy cane on the hard wood floor of Derek and Meredith's house in her quest to find her parents. Mark and Callie, gleaming and red-faced respectively, trail behind the rambunctious five year old in the hopes that she's forgotten what she witnessed earlier after they bribed her with enough ice cream to fill a horse carriage and several early Christmas presents.

When they round the corner into the kitchen, Rachel already in her father's arms, they discover that not only has she not forgotten, but she actually carries an acute memory for a child. Mark shrugs when Derek glares at them, because he knows that despite the inappropriateness of sneaking a hand under Callie's shirt in a very public setting, he's secretly happy for him.

After this year, after the last year, after his entire life- they decided, one evening after many drinks, that this is more or less the best possible outcome.

It only took Mark seven months to gain the courage to inch back into Callie's life, worming through many conversations about babies and Arizona and her tiny humans and broken promises and too many tears to properly recall, and now, he couldn't be happier.

His partner in crime, however, seemed eager though taken aback. She was reserved at nipping on his lower lip, and reaching for his waist, as if they had never done this dance. To her greatest fear, the passion hadn't dissipated over the last two years, despite her brief vacation- half a year in Los Angeles with Addison. Mark said that was enough to make even the most masochistic people come running back to the rain. And dragging in, tail between her legs, she had to admit that there's nothing quite like a Seattle morning, dewy and coffee filled.

California wasn't exactly helpful with anything but her tan, a few too many one night stands, and though Mark all but called her out on it in a very tense surgery once she returned, he was right and they both were fine with leaving it at that. The problem was she was too busy searching for the answers that were always in front of her, and he was tired of ignoring the solution in lieu of a waning friendship.

It made for a difficult and tumultuous year and a half.

"Well, finally," Meredith snorts, taking her daughter's hand, and helping her up onto the edge of the counter for a glass of water.

"Could've waited," Derek adds disapprovingly, causing Callie to shirk back behind Mark, hands fiddling with the edge of the island.

"It's getting late," Mark volunteers, watching Derek stifle a laugh at his lame game. Just the same he makes the tour around the kitchen saying goodbye to everyone, pulling Rachel's braided hair on his way out.

He doesn't hesitate to press a warm hand against the small of Callie's back, but he's beyond relieved when she doesn't shake it off and make a mad dash for the car.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"What are we...are we...I don't think..." Callie mumbles to herself, firmly fastening her seat belt and looking straight ahead at the black space of the road.

"How about we don't think about it Torres," Mark suggests bravely, turning on the engine, listening to the brief purr before he whips out into the street.

"It requires some thinking," Callie objects, unusually quiet following their short interlude of chemistry and intimacy.

"Just go with it," Mark smiles, and makes a pit stop on the way home for the dessert he knows they are both craving- heavy on the chocolate, heavy on the calories. He couldn't care less with the way his night has been going.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"So you and Sloan, again...again," Cristina laughs to herself, watching Callie roll her eyes in agony. Cristina laughs once more looking over at the ridiculous man in the red Santa suit sitting next to Derek and Meredith's fireplace.

It was a bad bet to lose, but Derek was grinning from ear to ear in victory and Rachel seemed pleased as punch that the one and only Santa decided to visit her specially, three days before Christmas, even if he does sound suspiciously like her Uncle Mark.

"Not again...again," Callie interjects, watching as Mark intently listens the long list his pseudo-niece is giving him. Callie overhears a suture kit and chuckles, she couldn't be a better child of two  
surgeons if she was ripping apart her toys and sewing them back together again- not for lack of trying. "We were...never anything anyway."

"Whatever...I'm happy for you," Cristina decides, searching the room for her own husband. "You deserve some good finally. Hell, look at Meredith."

"Yeah," Callie agrees. She does deserve something better than getting drunk at Joe's, fighting with her ex-girlfriend, and spending nights wondering why it never seems to work out anymore.

"I say go and get it. He's totally fuckable."

"Cristina!" Meredith admonishes from way across the room, their conversation loud enough for everyone to hear. Callie watches Cristina merely shrug, make no apologies and pop the top on another beer. Rachel may be an unconventional baby, having spent many nights with Mark and Callie and even Cristina, being raised by a village, but her parents were still overprotective and for that, Callie was thankful.

She had once hoped to be the same. She had wanted to be the first with kids.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"It's not room service," Mark cautions, a few days later, carefully balancing the tray in his arms so he can shuffle back to his bed. "But I think it is edible."

Callie smiles groggily, stretches in the comfort of a bed that's all too familiar, and reaches for the fork.

"This," she ascertains between bites, "tastes absolutely horrible."

"But you're eating it."

"I eat cafeteria food, that's not saying much," Callie pipes in, downing the eggtastic french toast in what she hopes is non-expired orange juice.

"Points for style?" Mark questions, titling the wilted flower (stolen from Meredith's Christmas Eve party last night) toward Callie.

"Hardly," Callie snorts, rejecting whatever the slop in the corner is in lieu of the fresh coffee she knows is decent, because Mark is a coffee snob and knows how to perfect nothing else except a good, strong cup of morning deliciousness, and new noses from scratch.

"I know...we've been together for...half a week, but I...wanted to get you something for Christmas, before...anyway. So it's a friend gift," Mark cautions, rolling over in his sweats to retrieve the box under the bed. "And I didn't wrap it-"

"I have something for you too," Callie smiles sheepishly. True, she found it months ago, but nevertheless, she thinks he'll love it. "Not wrapped, of course."

"On the count of three?" Mark suggests.

"One."

"Two."

"Three," the say together, pulling out the leather jackets from under the bed.

"Yours was starting to wear out-"

"Reminded me of you-"

They switch jackets, running fingers over delicate stitches and back up over zippers before Mark offers a hardy, "Merry Christmas." which is returned with a tentative kiss.

They spend the rest of the day lounging around his apartment, pretending to be weary of the relationship that has, for all intents and purposes, been building for years carefully crafted as friendship. And when they have to rouse, dress, and be presentable for Christmas dinner, again at Meredith and Derek's (they're the only people who care to host anything, ever), hands slide around slick bodies in the shower, peeks are sneaked, and they leave for the other side of town hand in hand, as if it had been that way all along.

Mark tells Derek, after they arrive and are pulled apart by the mass of people, that it was the best Christmas he's ever had. And he means it.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"You guys suck," Cristina announces months later to their lunch group. Mark and Callie are practically on top of one another, finishing sentences in an otherwise mundane story about how they had Rachel for the evening and how cute and awesome she is (known facts in this circle). "You're basically inbred."

"Cristina," Owen warns, stealing her water bottle and sipping.

"Seriously, just give me a gun and put me out of my misery. Or a scalpel."

"Cristina," Owen begins again, this time with a smile.

"Seriously," Jackson agrees, stirring his soup, nose stuffed from the still chilled Seattle air.

"No, seriously," Alex chimes in, as he rarely does. "This," he points between the minimal space separating them, "is disgusting."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Our friends hate us," Callie mourns into her afternoon tea, Mark spread out on the bed in the hallway next to her, his patient file on his lap.

"They're just jealous."

"Lexie-"

"Arizona-"

"I like us," Mark says softly a few minutes later, Callie's kicking feet causing the gurney to roll slightly. "I feel like...I've known you my whole life."

"Yeah," Callie nods, taking in his rare moment of honestly, minus the grandiose bravado he carries.

"We should get married," Mark continues calmly. He never thought this is how it would go, no ring, no knee, no violins straining in the background. But it fits, it's them- out of left field, but somehow appropriate.

"I want babies, lots of babies," Callie cautions, still raw from her last ending.

"I could stand a rug rat or three."

"Four," Callie corrects him, legs stilling under the bed as he slips a warm palm onto her thigh.

"This is crazy," he thinks aloud, looking to her for a reaction.

"This is...us," Callie reasons. She's not saying four babies within the next year, or even marriage, but someday- Mark, and babies, and a huge backyard- that's what she wants. And to know what she wants for the first time in five years is both freeing and excruciating. "They can't hate us more then they already do."

"Cristina as a bridesmaid," Mark laughs.

"Payback."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

Mark wanted the service, and secretly Callie did too. After slipping off to Vegas for a weekend, after disappointing her entire family (half of which still refused to show, even though she was marrying a man), after all the pain they had endured separately and together- they wanted a celebration. They wanted champagne, and tuxes, and a big band, and traditional vows that still felt intensely personal. They wanted the huge budget, freshly cut flowers everywhere, and a thin tent covered in sparkling lights under a temperate Seattle summer night.

So they planned, and fought over place settings and whose aunt should sit with whose grandmother and held each others hand as they learned Mark's father had decided not to come and that Callie's sister, Aria, simply had better things to do.

And now, only a few quick months later, they find themselves wound up in different rooms of the rented out old church they chose for their service. Their guests are all secured in the right seats, children left thoughtfully at home except Rachel who is busy twirling next to Callie in her black dress, stamping her shiny shoes onto the hardwood floor while Meredith attempted to wrestle her unruly curls into something fashionable.

"It's fast, too fast," Callie says to herself, poking a bobby pin into her hair more securely. It's up off her neck, and is therefore heavy, but it matches the off-white dress perfectly, even if it hurts and will end up slowly falling apart.

"You've known each other for a long time," Meredith adds, straightening the black sash around Callie's waist after giving up on her own daughter.

"You could always go for the whole divorced, middle-aged, wildly successful woman thing, I've heard it works," Addison tells her with a laugh, smacking away her friend's hand as it attempts to peel off a very successful manicure job.

"Someone tell me this is not a mistake," Callie whimpers to her reflection.

"You're freaking out," Cristina pipes up from under her champagne flute. She's not tied up in chiffon and peach colored bows but it still could be better. When all eyes in the room settle in on a glare she shrugs, "What? She is freaking out."

"Why is she here?" Addison asks, pursing her mouth and rubbing Callie's arm gently.

"Punishment."

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"I'm proud of you," Derek laughs, taking another nip off his flask, rooms away from the women.

"This is it," Mark breathes. God, he thought it would be Addison (even though he knew it never could be), or Lexie (though that always seemed impossibly irresponsible). But now, with Callie, there's a surety settled in the pit of his stomach. He's marrying his best friend. He's getting the one person who understands all the mood swings, all his dysfunction, all his shortcomings and thinks he's enough to still throw caution to the wind.

He feels luck; luck is coursing through his veins followed by pure joy.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Pretty good party, Sloan," Alex comments, his arrival late and of course on purpose. He wanted cake and to chase skirts. The end.

"It is, isn't it?" Mark says, slapping the newly appointed attending's shoulder. He is pulled away by Owen minutes later, for the official first dance.

He does his best to keep up with Callie, he took lessons, but three fourths of the way through his shoes find her toes and they both yelp before they can laugh and loosen up to merely swaying through the room, Callie's dress dusting the floor aimlessly.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

"Tired?" Mark asks hours upon hours later, as they stumble into their suite for the evening, their flights booked for tomorrow's much needed vacation.

At first they thought they should postpone the honeymoon, then they thought they should take an extended weekend, but Richard had assured them both that nothing fantastic would happen if they decided to take a week off to breathe, and so they did. Or rather, Addison did, for them. Handling all of the mundane details about airfare, hotels, and adventures he knows they will in all likelihood skip in favor of spending time with each other in bed.

"I think we put on a damn good wedding," Callie remarks to him, pulling off one uncomfortable shoe and then the other.

"So Mrs. Sloan, how do you feel about partaking in other sanctioned post-wedding activities?"

"Torres-Sloan," Callie corrects, turning around so he can help her unfasten the millions of tiny buttons of the back of her dress. "I'm never too tired, for that," Callie tells him once her ribs begin to shift back into their normal alignment.

His lips land somewhere near her neck.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**

…

"It's Derek's turn this year," Mark grumbles at his wife, slipping into the oversized red pants as she kicks a pair of black boots his direction.

"You lost, for the third time in a row. Next time pick something you're actually good at and kick his ass."

"I'm good at basketball," Mark refutes, lacing up his Santa shoes.

"You suck, clearly," Callie confirms for him, leaning against the kitchen counter of their newly purchased home. It's still mostly empty, but it's warm. Everything is in disarray, only a marginal amount of dishes, clothes, and the all important television in their proper location, but it feels like home already. They made the right decision, they picked the right backyard which is currently covered with light snow. "Besides, you've got, at the very least, another eighteen years of Santa role play in your future."

"True," he grins, looking over her curves to find his favorite, the place where their first child is resting peacefully.

"Hurry up, we're already late," she tells him, for the third time this morning, and tugs down the deep green sweater over her son (a knowledgeable present she's keeping to herself until Christmas morning), and tosses the fake, old, gray beard onto Mark's lap.

She's jangling the keys impatiently in her right hand by the time he's finally dressed and ready, confused and annoyed by his turtle-like speed. "Mark, let's go!"

"Hold on," Mark says, grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the back of the house, eventually guiding her onto the deck. "It's snowing again."

She takes in her surroundings, shivering, feet chilled, and nose red. The sky is light, whitening the yard, snow binding to the branches of leafless trees, and frozen shrubbery. She can imagine a slide, and a swing, and a sandbox there in a few years. She can practically taste the spilled juice, and smell the sun-melted crayons.

They don't take enough moments, she decides snuggling into the crook of Mark's smelly, dusty red velvet suit, feeling his white gloved hand come to a rest around her back. She closes her eyes for a second, flakes of ice melting onto her cold cheeks, Mark's breath twisting into the wind above her.

For all their arguments over what color to paint the walls, to who needs to be not working night shifts any longer they've arrived. Through all of her concerns and reservations. Through all of his desperation to build a life, to have something of his own- this is it.

This is the happiness they've been chasing, and they've finally caught more than the tail end of something, held onto something that's more than a shadow.

**_~-~-~-~-~-~-~_**


End file.
